No regrets for Dale Earnhardt Jr. before his final NASCAR Cup Series race

Dale Jr. knows it’s the right time to leave NASCAR racing behind, but he did elaborate on the one thing he might do differently if he had a career do-over.

It’s possible to be a straight shooter and also be relentlessly positive. You can’t define Dale Earnhardt Jr. in just one sentence, but that’s as good a try as any when it comes to his NASCAR career, now ever so close to its final chapter.

When times have been good for Junior, he’s been exuberant, someone whose pure joy radiates in obvious ways. And during tougher stretches, Earnhardt has been honest about the shortcomings of himself or his team while remaining a fantastic proponent of the sport he loves.

With that in mind, it probably should come as no surprise that as he prepares for the Ford EcoBoost 400, the presumed final race of his NASCAR Cup Series career, he told the media at Homestead-Miami Speedway that he has zero regrets about his decision to retire.

"“It’s time for somebody else to get in that car and get out of it what they can. And with Alex (Bowman) coming in behind, it’s just a great opportunity for him. It’s his time. It’s now is moment going into next season to take his career wherever he can go. And mine, in my heart, has ran its course.“It was always this is the last year. And I’m glad I get to run it. And, when I started in Daytona, I didn’t know whether I would finish, you know, feeling delicate and feeling compromised and knowing how easily that could happen again. I confided in my friends and family and my wife that I was worried that I could get another concussion and how disappointing that would be. So, I’m sitting here healthy. And I’m going to run this last race. And I got all the way through the year, so I feel blessed. I feel really good with it.”"

For Earnhardt’s legions of fans, that concussion remains one of the biggest “what ifs” imaginable, right up there with the Cup Series championship that always eluded him. Could he have kept going past the 2017 season without the wreck that left him out of commission — and even more worryingly, so uncertain about continuing — for a big chunk of 2016?

Junior told reporters that there were times he didn’t think about the injury at all this year, as well as others when it weighed on him a bit more heavily. Still, he’s always seemed at peace with his decision to walk away, so it’s not surprising that mere proximity to the finish line would make him change his mind.

When pressed for something he might do differently, Earnhardt Jr. did offer up something that sounded like the type of wisdom that is only available through hindsight.

"“When I was racing for my family, I took advantage and didn’t take it seriously. There were days when I would come into the garage to practice and everybody was in their cars pulling out of their stalls and I’m just walking in. And, nothing was wrong with that, you know, in my mind. That’s crazy. I mean, you’d be fired in this day and time if a driver was that carefree about it. It didn’t seem to matter. As soon as practice was over, I’d go sit in the truck and if Tony (Eury) Jr. and Tony (Eury) Sr. hadn’t asked me a question in five or ten minutes, I was in the bus playing video games for as long as I could. I was up until 2 in the morning playing video games on Friday and Saturday nights. I just had no idea how to take advantage of the opportunity that I was given. I’m sure I could have accomplished so much more if I had been plugged-in.“But it’s really two completely different extremes from the person I was then to the person I became racing at Rick’s [Hendrick Motorsports]. Being around Jimmie (Johnson) and Jeff (Gordon) and sort of emulating their work ethic… I had to work like Jimmie and Jeff. They would call you out, you know, if you weren’t as focused. And that was how a driver at Hendrick Motorsports was supposed to be. You were volunteering to go test. Now I never volunteered to go test anywhere. But you wanted to be the company guy. You wanted to do whatever it was that would help the company. And man, I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to go work there and learn that. But had I been able to apply that to the first half of my career, I would like to have seen what difference that might have made.”"

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Maybe that doesn’t fit the textbook definition of a regret, but it’s as close as we’re likely to get from Earnhardt Jr. Even after the checkered flag waves on Sunday, likely for someone other than him, we shouldn’t expect that to change.